Baptism

"I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it shall have been accomplished!" Luke 12:50.

The Lord has left only two ordinances for the church, the Lord's Table and baptism. We teach much about the Lord's Table because we come to the Lord's Table very often and we speak of its meaning very often. But largely, the subject of baptism is untouched, and perhaps even in my own case, I've been unfaithful in maintaining a balance so that you would understand the significance of baptism and its meaning.

John the Baptist, who is considered a forerunner to Christianity, used baptism as the central sacrament of his messianic movement. Christians consider Jesus to have instituted the sacrament of baptism. The earliest Christian baptisms were done by immersion.

Scripture gives us the simple fact that believers ought to be baptized. ... I have for thirty-two years been asking, in vain, for a single line of scripture for baptizing any save believers or those who professed to believe. Reasonings I have had, inferences, conclusions, and deductions; but of direct scripture authority not one tittle.

Raindrops fall on water. Acts 8:35-38 reads: "And Philip, opening his mouth and beginning from that scripture, announced the glad tidings of Jesus to him. And as they went along the way, they came upon a certain water, and the eunuch says, Behold water; what hinders my being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop. And they went down both to the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him."

Christian baptism, from a biblical perspective, with commentary on believer's baptism, household baptism, and infant baptism.

Recently, while replying to an email, I had opportunity to review several of John Nelson Darby's letters concerning Christian baptism. Several themes in these letters merit careful consideration: (1) that baptism is not the act of him that is baptised, (2) that there is no command to be baptised, and (3) that baptism is the appointed way that a person is received into the church or formally admitted into the house of God.

Acts chapter 16, verses 30 to 34, is a wonderful testimony to the power of God touching a jailer and his household in the Macedonian city of Philippi. Some commentators have suggested that verse 34 allows for baptism of infants in a believer's house. Let us examine this premise.

It is ever welcome to any right-minded person to be asked to speak about himself. So John the Baptist found it. He readily told them he was not the Messiah, that he was not Elias; yea, that he was not even the prophet. But they would have a positive answer. "They said unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?" Little indeed had he to say of himself. "I" had a very small place in John's thoughts. "A voice." Was this all? Yes; this was all. But these Pharisees were not satisfied. John's self-hiding spirit was entirely beyond them. "They asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not the Christ, nor Elias, neither the prophet?" Here again the Baptist makes short work. "John answered them, saying, I baptize with water; but there standeth one among you whom ye know not. He it is who, coming after me, is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose."

A couple of generations after Jesus' apostles had departed to be with Christ, a prolific writer and teacher, by name Origen, arose in Alexandria, Egypt. The teachings and commentaries of Origen and subsequent authors have been used in some Christian circles to support the practice of baptizing infants who are born in Christian households.